Category: Rock Listicles
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20 Van Halen Deep Cuts Only True Fans Know (2026 Update)
The David Lee Roth-era(s) of Van Halen spawned 7 albums and 98 songs, with roughly 25 songs receiving heavy radio airplay. Considering Van Halen’s influence and popularity, it’s hard to say anything they ever did—especially in the DLR era—could be “under-appreciated.” The six classic albums with Roth have sold 50+ million copies (worldwide). It’s safe…
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32 Essential Hard Rock Bands (According to Me)
Rock, in all its subgenre confusion, is my favorite kind of music and pretty much the only music I enjoy at home. Roughly half of my favorite bands are hard rock, and 8 of my 10 favorite albums fall within the hard rock genre or land somewhere in the vicinity of hard rock-adjacent, e.g., Never…
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32 Songs About Family
When I consider songs about family, I’m drawn to oddball perspectives and appalled by the populist feelgood drivel of “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge and “Daughters” by John Mayer. However, having a 14-year-old son is a daily reminder that some people didn’t grow up watching All in the Family and Different Strokes, so these…
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I’m Not Here for That: The Most Overrated Rock Bands of All Time
Here’s your daily reminder that opinions about music are essentially worthless, and anything I have to say about the most overrated rock bands of all time is not going to change your life or your mind. I’m here for entertainment purposes only. However, it’s fair to say that I’ve put a lot of thought into…
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Calling Bullsh*t: 25 Overrated Rock Albums
As a rule, Black Sunshine Media is a good karma website, meaning, I don’t write negative stuff unless it’s exclusively within the context (or boundaries) of whatever I’m writing about. For example, in Top Rock Guitarists of All Time (According to Me), I mention some overrated players and brief reasons for my opinion, but the…
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Top Rock Music Producers of the 1990s and 2000s
[Grandpa enters the room and slumps into an easy chair. He slowly pivots his head toward the camera, lowering his gaze.] You see, I have a love/hate relationship with rock music from the 1990s to present, and likewise, a vague sense of ambivalence for the top rock music producers of the digital era. The problem…
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25 Songs About Sex
Seventy percent of rock music is fundamentally and/or tangentially about sex. The other 30 percent of rock music is about guys who can’t seem to get any sex. The phrase “rocking and rolling” originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean as a sexual analogy. Likewise, the subtext of “boy meets girl” is…
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Top 60 Rock Keyboardists (According to Me)
I’ve been reluctant to publish this post about rock keyboard players—or keyboardists—because technically and theoretically, I’m not a pianist or keyboardist. If somebody asks, yes, I can play keyboards, but I’m no Edgar Winter. However, piano was the first instrument I learned to play, before drums or guitar. Keyboard Heroes Unlike guitar and drums, I…
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150+ Yacht Rock and/or Pool Party Songs to Set the Tone
Do you have a boat with a sound system that needs a rock-oriented playlist for your next soireé at sea? Are you planning an adult pool party but don’t have time to curate a soundtrack? Having some friends over tonight to guzzle some cocktails and talk shit about each other? You’ve come to the right…
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Top 50 Progressive Rock Guitarists (According to Me)
I don’t consider myself a progressive rock guitarist, but prog is an important part of my skill set. The verse section of “The Spirit of Radio” by Rush was the first lick I learned to play by ear. Yessongs (1973) was the first live album I ever owned. I legit studied classical guitar for two…
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Top 30 Alternative Rock Guitarists (According to Me)
Alternative rock is mostly guitar-centric, so it’s no surprise that the genre is loaded with talent. I’ve got my favorites because I basically grew up during the hey-days of alternative (1983–1999), and the closely related genres of new wave and post-punk. There’s a lot of crossover between genres but, like everything else, after writing so…
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Top Progressive Rock Albums of All Time (According to Me)
Progressive rock emerged in the late 1960s when rock musicians were empowered to move away from the singles format and into the album era, and likewise, allowed to explore conceptual and instrumental boundaries. This artistic and commercial freedom resulted in a tsunami of progressive rock albums during its peak between 1971–1976, when hundreds, maybe thousands,…
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Top 50+ Alternative Rock Albums (According to Me)
Like many comparable types of rock music, alternative rock music went through phases or waves of emergence, peak saturation, and ultimate decline. Our task is to parse and evaluate the best albums from the period, which isn’t easy. It begs a bigger question: What is alternative rock? Modern rock bands are still making what we…
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25 Songs About Chicago
Chicago is my hometown. Born on the West Side and raised in the suburbs of DuPage County, I spent the first 30 years of my life in the Windy City, including a five-year stretch on the North Side (Bucktown). I miss my city every day. To be honest, I mostly miss the food and the…
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Rejected! Songs That Didn’t Make the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Original motion picture soundtracks (OSTs) can be wildly inconsistent in terms of listening value and experience. Sometimes, they include (many of) the songs played in the movie, such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Purple Rain (1984). Others, like the Star Wars OSTs by John Williams—one of the most recognizable and influential scores in cinematic…
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Get Their Greatest Hits: 50+ Rock Bands Best Experienced Through Compilation Albums
Some rock bands are built for albums. They reward patience, headphones, liner notes, and the kind of long-distance devotion that only comes from growing up with their music. Other bands? They require a specialized type of curation. This post is about the second group—the artists whose best selves appear when someone else trims the fat.…
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25 Songs About the Moon
The moon is one of the more popular themes in popular music. Songs about the moon (or moon-adjacent) are not quite in the “love” category of blanket coverage, but significantly more popular than, say, songs about Chicago, family, or Japan, or even cats and dogs. The moon is a popular subject because it sounds good…
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Top 50 Rock Drummers of All Time (According to Me)
We’ve covered three of the Big Four positions in rock music—vocals, guitar, and bass—so it’s time to list the top rock drummers of all time (according to me). But before we get to the list, you deserve some backstory, and, of course, I’m increasingly fond of an early bird spoiler. My number one pick is…
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25 Songs About Japan
From Buck Owens to The Flaming Lips, artists have been singing about Japan for decades—sometimes as wide-eyed tourists, sometimes as dreamers, and too many times as creepy reports of the Asian fetish. This list vaguely explores how musicians across genres have (mis)interpreted the country as both place and idea: a symbol of distance, fantasy, and modern…
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25 Songs About Friends
Sometimes when I’m creating these lists, there’s a shocker at the beginning. For example, in 25 Songs About California, I open with a spiel about not including “Hotel California”, an obvious choice that appears on every other list. Likewise, in 25 Songs About New York, I start by telling the reader that you’re not gonna…
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Top Rock Music Producers of the 1980s
Rock music in the 1980s was a fascinating era marked by excess, experimentation, and the gradual but inevitable shift from analog tape machines to the digital frontier. It was the last gasp of the “classic” recording studio setup: massive consoles, reel-to-reel tape, and producers who could bend the limits of technology through sheer ingenuity. Yet…
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Brothers & Sisters: 75 Siblings in Rock Music
The combustible chemistry between siblings has powered some of the most iconic moments in rock history. There’s something flammable about the connection between siblings who share both a stage and a last name—whether it’s the tight harmonies, the creative tension, or the lifelong bond that somehow makes the music hit harder. Of course, that bond…
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Top Rock Music Producers of the 1970s
The first compact disc wasn’t burned until 1983, so 1970 to 1982 was the Golden Age of Albums. The period also welcomed album-oriented rock (AOR) radio formatting, which allowed disc jockeys some leeway to play longer songs and deeper cuts. We got double, triple, even quadruple albums from our favorite rock bands. And who was…
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Great Rock Bands from the 2000s (You Might Have Missed)
Not that anybody is keeping track, but I’ve probably said “rock music died in 1991” at least a dozen times in print and hundreds of times in conversation. I believe that once digital audio software (ProTools), samplers, sequencers, and synthesizers, i.e., computers, became a driving force in music, that’s when the soul of rock n’…
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Top Rock Music Producers of the 1960s
In the mid-1960s, rock musicians and producers began shifting focus from singles to albums as the primary medium for creative expression and listener engagement. The Beatles and Bob Dylan were at the forefront; their work helped elevate rock music’s cultural status and sparked a decades-long “album era” within the recording industry. The music producer played…